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This. I’m surprised more people dont havent mentioned this, but this has always been my back to work routine – and sometimes if vacations overlapped, I’d find a summary email of “While you were away, X,Y,Z happened, I covered A, but you might want to check on B and C” which was always very helpful.
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This works fine but I notice it also adds after your auto-responder at the bottom an option for them to reply “urgent” to ensure I receive notifications which seems damn pointless if you ask me. Is there a way to switch that off because it seems to be counter-intuitive to setting the auto-responder that you’re not there or on leave? Thanks Trace
Everything’s a little off-kilter as we continue to contend with the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s hard to step away from work when the “office” is the dining room table you can see from your couch. It feels a little strange to take PTO when travel and boisterous family gatherings seem like a distant memory. You might be working odd hours so you can juggle childcare and other responsibilities. Or maybe your full-time job became a part-time one (or an on-hold one) as a result of the economic downturn that hit along with the coronavirus.
Education Details: Joshua Kim. January 15, 2020. Hello. I am on vacation between now and Jan. 13 and will not be checking email. Please resend your email on or after Jan. 13. Thanks, Josh. That was the out-of-office (OOO) message that I set on my work email the last time I went on vacation.
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I get why that would bug the hell out of you. But on the flip side, having worked with a lot of European colleagues who do this, it’s not that they’ll have to 8 hours of work on vacation, it’s that they won’t be working at all. So if your bit isn’t done by X date, then their bit won’t get done until they return. That’s just the culture there.
Most of what I’m describing (as well as boyd) boils down to examples of clear, honest, communication. While it sounds simple, such openness is extremely rare in the workplace. It is rare because, especially with time off, this type of communication requires the sender to be vulnerable, to cede control, and/or to be assertive and frank about one’s needs.
Mine tend towards the latter for both internal and external and only get a little more expository if it’s a closedown period and I’m adding leave to one end of it, but that’s a simple “The organisation is shut between X and Y. For emergencies during this time please contact Team. I am on leave between Z and B and will not be accessing my email during this time. Please contact Email Address if your enquiry is urgent otherwise I will attend to your email as soon as is practicable upon my return.”
I had a coworker once who hated it when she got somebody’s out of office message. I asked her why it got her so bent out of shape. “Because then I have to wait until they get back to send the message again!”
Okay. So, it’s not to my exact personal tastes — to me, it’s overly wordy — but it’s probably fine for their culture and I’d be mildly amused if I got it. I see where you’re seeing condescension, but I think you can read it without that too.
The reason I did it was that the first time I took maternity leave, I came back to thousands of irrelevant emails. It was a chore to sort through them, and finding the ones that were still relevant was like finding a needle in a haystack. And it wasn’t just a waste of *my* time – I often had to reach out to email senders only to hear that no further action was needed, so I was wasting their time too.
Eh, my team’s instruction to put them up if they’re going to be away from email/voicemail for more than an hour (standard lunch break). I have a ton of staff, and we’re in a business where a high degree of responsiveness, especially during the business day, is expected and few of my staff have mobile email. We’re also a larger organization with mixed project teams, and not everyone knows who’s PT/FT or on nonstandard hours.
I greatly value your email and I will read it as soon as I return to my desk. Still, if you require immediate assistance, please get in touch with[Alternate Name] at [alternate email].
Switching between apps to get things done will break the continuum of work. Working on records in the CRM and collaborating on other apps simultaneously ...
My boss requires us to put a nightly OOO message up, and I HATE it. I pushed back on it for months at first, because people know and understand that the reason no one is responding at 8pm is because the business is closed (or at least, they should understand that…). It wasn’t worth the fight, my boss thinks it’s so important, so I caved and just turn on the message every night. I think it makes us look immature and like we don’t understand business norms, but it’s not the hill I’m willing to die on.